Not done, yet.

Hank’s heart dropped. Vera was his favorite coworker. A community college dropout, she and Hank were the same breed of wasted potential just barely scraping by. At the gas station, Vera was the only other one there who seemed to recognize the crazy that the gas station was. She was funny, down to earth, and sure, pretty.

Hank knew not to shit where he ate and didn’t want to ruin things with the one person making that job tolerable. He was attracted to her, they had chemistry, he wanted to try things with her, but he didn’t want to fuck things up at work.

But the alternative was fucking up a statistical truth about his life. For all he knew, the game was going to rewrite history so they have already had an insane amount of sex if he didn’t do it, though.

He didn’t want to get her involved with him while the game was a factor in his life. But the game might just involve her anyway. And to a much greater degree, he thought, remembering how Talia’s sex total had quickly spiraled.

Which brought up another problem: he didn’t know how his relationship with Vera had changed in this new reality. All of his friends were distancing themselves from his weird situation. Did Vera know? Did she care?

***

As it turned out, it was very difficult to orgasm under duress. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Talia never masturbated. But according to the book, the number of times per year was a single digit number. Talia just always had something better to do, something more productive.

She had a low but healthy libido and didn’t watch much pornography, finding it distastefully presented. Not to mention the conditions the industry imposes on those girls. On top of that, most lesbian porn was for straight men.

Talia initially went with the tried and true rubbing of her clit while imagining a nice, gentle massage. But Sarah’s face kept popping up and no matter the stimulation, she just wasn’t aroused. After thirty-eight minutes, Talia relented and started searching for porn on her phone.

“Since when does Pornhub need my driver’s license?” She asked indignantly to the open air. She tried googling for videos of women in love, but most of the websites either tried to install malware on her phone or needed her ID.

Eventually she found a website for erotica, fingering away at herself while she tried searching for a WLW story written by someone above a ninth grade reading level. Her forearms were getting tired and she just wasn’t getting aroused. Even after finding a story she was interested in, her eyes kept glancing at the clock and getting more anxious about the passing time.

Ninety-seven minutes after the challenge started, she realized this wasn’t going to work. Not like this. She had stolen Sarah’s favorite vibrator while she was packing out of spite. It was hidden somewhere in one of the boxes in the guest room. She needed to hurry.

***

According to his biography detailing his relationship with Vera for the past year, very little had changed between them. She did seem to know about his strange friends with benefits situation with Talia, but not quite the extent of it. She had suspicions with how many condoms he bought, but didn’t say much about it.

He needed to get her to agree to a date. But how? He checked for heavy metal concerts nearby, but there wasn’t anything for the next month. She liked cars, so maybe there was a car show or something, but his investigation found nothing useful. She liked gaming, so maybe something with that?

His time was running out, so he began composing a message. Halfway through his paragraph of preamble, he stopped. Vera swore off dating after her abusive ex. He’d heard the stories and he couldn’t blame her. But he had two minutes left.

He deleted his paragraph. This wasn’t going to work. He was given another impossible task. But he at least had to try this one. There may have been a punishment for three refusals in a row.

HANK: Hey, wanna play Smash on Thursday?

He sent the text, burying his face in his hands. One minute. No affirmative response in one minute and he’d lose another challenge.

His phone buzzed moments after he’d dropped it on the couch.

VERA: ur place after work thursday

What? That worked? This whole time he could have just asked? He could hardly believe what he was reading. Not just the positive response, but the speed of it.

VERA: thank fuck you texted

VERA: my roommates wanted to do a makeover night thursday. I was gonna pick up a double shift to avoid it lol

VERA: or just have blown my brains out.

Hank’s relief was soon replaced with horror, feeling the crinkle of a condom wrapper under him. He couldn’t have Vera here! Here in this sex cave! He needed to clean so much! How were they going to hide the board game!

When Talia emerged from the bedroom, she found Hank running around picking up plastic wrappers and opening every window in the house trying to air out the smell of sweat and sex. The little waste bins filled with condoms in each room that neither of them wanted to touch had been removed.

Despite her exhaustion, despite her frustration and anger, seeing him cleaning the house somehow gave her some hope for things. He wasn’t going to let them sit in this dungeon of filth. And maybe she shouldn’t be so resigned, either.

“Are you ready for me to roll?” She asked, grabbing a sweat towel off the floor and walking it to the laundry room.

“Tomorrow a coworker is coming over for a date.” Hank sighed, looking to her apologetically. “It was my challenge. If I cancel, things get worse.”

Talia nodded. She didn’t want anyone to come in and see this. See her living with him. But if her biography’s update could change the number of times Hank had sex, then him being punished could very easily come back on her, too. The last thing she needed was his number of children conceived with Talia Lee stat to go up.

“I don’t know what to do about the board.” He said, leaning against the counter.

“Let’s just finish the game before she comes. Then we don’t have to worry about it, yeah?” She said, combing her fingers through her longe blonde hair. Hank let himself be convinced. Both of them knew this game wasn’t ending today. The challenges were going to take time and effort and if it took Talia almost three hours just to masturbate, then things were going to slow down. They both hadn’t slept, they were emotionally drained. But they needed to persist.

Talia kneeled down on the carpet and picked up the die for her roll. It was actually quite high. Four, putting her at seven on the board. It was a white square. “What’s white, again?” She asked, Hank grabbing the rulebook.

“Wild.” He answered. “Just says it could be anything.”

Talia winced, reaching for the Category Deck. The card was black on the other side.

*Detriment: **When moving on the board, you may only move a maximum of five spaces.*

Well so much for avoiding the black squares, she thought. How terrible a thing. Sure, it was only costing her one square of movement a sixth of the time, but still! It slowed her progress forwards.

Angrily, she threw the die at Hank, who caught it, she just wanted to get on to the next challenge already.

One. A measly one. However, it had put him on the green square just behind Talia’s piece. A reward space. Of course he got the reward space.

Hank was relieved. Especially after getting two black cards at once. But he was a bit scared of what the game considered an award. He tried not to let his excitement show, sensing Talia’s anger, and so just reached for the Category Deck, pulling a card with a green face.

Reward: +50% income for the rest of your life regardless of profession.

“Ok.” Hank let out a sharp breath, relieved. “Was hoping for something for the game, but more money’s good.” The Category Deck’s cage snapped closed and Talia put her hand over the Challenge Deck.

But the cage didn’t open. Talia looked up at Hank cautiously. He picked up the glowing rulebook, reading the new entry out loud.

Maximum daily rounds:

After rolling the minimum number of rounds in the day, players determine the maximum number of rounds in the day by adding one to the die roll.

“Noooo!” Talia, couldn’t help but laugh into her hands. It was absurd. This was a nightmare. She wanted to just get everything over with. Why was it so hard to play the game that played itself?

Hank kept reading.

End of day:

If all players play the maximum number of rounds in a day, then the table may elect to participate in a mini game. The rules of the mini game are different every time, but better performances are rewarded. The table may vote any time before the next minimum number of daily rounds is rolled to play a mini game in a vote decided by a simple majority.

The two sat in stunned silence for a minute. Weary from the twists and the turns. Just as they get the hang of something or comes to terms with their situation, things change.

“I need sleep.” Talia asserted.

“Agreed.”

“I hate this.”

“Yup.”

“I hate everything about this. We’ll decide what to do when we wake up.”